Collective
'' |image= |series= |production=40840-235 |producer(s)= |story=Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman |script=Michael Taylor |director=Allison Liddi |imdbref=tt0708867 |guests=Manu Intiraymi as Icheb, Marley S. McClean as Mezoti, Kurt Wetherill as Azan, Cody Wetherill as Rebi and Ryan Spahn as First |previous_production=Virtuoso |next_production=Memorial |episode=VGR S06E16 |airdate=16 February 2000 |previous_release=Tsunkatse |next_release=Spirit Folk |story_date(s)=Unknown |group="N"}} (2376) |previous_story=Virtuoso |next_story=Memorial }} Summary Chakotay, Kim, Paris and Neelix are taken hostage when the Delta Flyer is captured by a Borg Cube. However, it is inhabited by a small group of Borg children who were left behind, unworthy of assimilation. Chakotay, Paris and Neelix find themselves placed in what appears to be an assimilation chamber. However, Kim is not with them. A dead body lies on a table in the center of the room. It's partly Borgified and its face and arm are covered with implants that appear crudely inserted. Meanwhile, Voyager discovers that the Borg Cube's propulsion system is off-line. The Cube first targets Voyager's warp core and then moves to its impulse engines. While the Cube's attack strategy is erratic and inefficient, Voyager capably disables the Cube's weapons. Seven discovers that there are only five signatures, instead of thousands of Borg, manning the vessel. The Borg will return the crewmembers in exchange for Voyager's navigational deflector. However, Voyager will be unable to go to warp without it. Seven tells Janeway that the Borg most likely want Voyager's deflector in order to contact the Collective because their own is damaged. While stalling the Borg, Janeway tells them that she is sending Seven over to make sure that her crewmembers are unharmed. Aboard the Borg Cube, Seven discovers that it is manned by neonatal Drones, or children, who have not matured long enough. The children insist that the Borg will come for them once their link is re-established. Seven returns to Voyager along with a dead body of an adult Drone. She tells the Borg children that it must be examined in order to establish what went wrong aboard the ship. The Doctor discovers that a spaceborne virus attacked the Drones and is responsible for their deaths. The virus never reached the developing drones because they were protected within the maturation chambers. Malfunctions caused by the deaths of the adults led several chambers to open prematurely. The Doctor also discovers that if the pathogen is revived, it could be used to neutralize the Drone children. Because Voyager cannot give up its deflector, Janeway offers Seven's services in repairing the Cube's technology. One of the Borg children tells Janeway that she has exactly two hours before one of the hostages dies. Meanwhile, Kim wakes up after lying unconscious within the Delta Flyer and attempts to contact Voyager. And while speaking with the Borg children, Seven tries to jostle their memories in hopes that they will turn away from the Collective and come aboard Voyager. While working on the Cube's repairs, Seven discovers that the Collective did receive the Drones' initial distress call and that they never dispatched a vessel to rescue them. The Collective declared the neonatal Drones irrelevant and damaged, severing their link to the Hive permanently. However, the Drone children were unable to decrypt this message, which stated that they are unworthy of re-assimilation. Meanwhile, Kim is captured and he awakes to raw-looking implants on his face. By this point, one of the boy Drones becomes so frustrated that he insists that Voyager turn over their deflector immediately. Seven tells the Drone children that the Hive will never come back for them and that their call for help was ignored. Meanwhile, Voyager works to beam the hostages back by emittiing an energy pulse over the Borg Cube. Tuvok successfully beams Chakotay, Paris and Neelix onto Voyager. However, Seven and Kim are being held in a shielded area of the Cube. Angered, one of the boy Drones shoves tubules into Seven's neck. However, another boy Drone pulls him away from Seven. As the Cube's transwarp core begins to destabilize, Seven instructs evacuation. However, the first Drone boy refuses to leave, and he is shocked and knocked to his feet. Seven comforts him while he dies. Back on Voyager, The Doctor successfully removes the children's implants. Seven was able to salvage part of the Cube's database, which includes the children's original assimilation profiles. Thus, the children discover that their names are Icheb, Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi. Errors and Explanations Nit Central # Mark Swinton on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 - 6:22 pm: Once again, the creators are treading once again on the toes of ESTABLISHED CONTINUITY which has stated that (with the possible exception of Locutus, who deliberately had part of Picard left in him) there is no such thing as a semi-assimilated Borg drone! (Granted, I still thing this will be an interesting show- when I get to see it, sigh… but even as recently as First Contact we saw how Borg are assimilated and we saw that it is a SWIFT process, fully completed within a few minutes. Unless this episode's Borg have in some way been interfered with during their assimilation process... it's a continuity oversight!) ScottN on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 - 9:59 pm: We'll have to see what it is, but maybe they were in the process of being assimilated when the BorgQueen got nuked in Dark Frontier? Ghel on Wednesday, February 16, 2000 - 2:25 pm: Anti "established continutity" nit. Sort of. First Contact established that there is such a thing as a partially assimilated drone. First the Borg do the quick and dirty nanoprobe assimilation, then later they come back and finish the job, eg. adding larger appliances. Lieutenant Hawk is a perfect example of this. He is carried off, and returns with his face slightly disfigured, but with all his limbs and eyes still attached. The film also demonstrated drones adding arm pieces and eye pieces manually to their new recruits. ' # ''Spornan, who remembers the premise of this show on Wednesday, February 16, 2000 - 8:00 pm: Why, when we first meet the kids, are they speaking to each other? Aren't they still "connected" to each other? Wouldn't they automatically know everything about the others? Also, why do all the kids have different personalities? I'm no expert on psychology, but wouldn't the fact that the were born without identies, make them something akin to...for lack of a better word...drones? Or at least all act the same way. That brings up another big nit. Why are they acting like children? Hormones? They are borg. Just because they were cut off from the collective, doesn't mean they would act like Children. It took Hugh lots of time and effort to start to act like anything but a borg. (Though one could say his denial of being an individual was the first sign). Even if the olders ones weren't borg their whole lives, their real memories are gone once they become borg. ALL borg should have the same personalities, at least when they are first "released" and especially when they maintain a link with several others. (The 5 should all act the exact same way).PaulG on Wednesday, February 16, 2000 - 8:49 pm: Anti-Nit: Since these Borg are "damaged", strange behavior is not out of character. And it has been shown that assimilated Borg do retain some memories, though they are usually deeply repressed unless individuality reasserts itself. Seven of Nine has remembered moments from her childhood and in the episode "Survival Instinct" the Borg drones (including Seven) remember their previous lives once separated from the collective. This is consistent. ''' Notes Category:Episodes Category:Voyager